· Though battery capacity is still 77.5 watt-hours, estimated battery life has fallen to seven hours from a previously reported eight to nine. "Has performance really decreased, or is Apple being more realistic with their estimates?" iFixit muses. "We don't have 7 hours to wait and find out."

· Regular tinkerers may be startled to find an AMD-branded graphics chip. AMD acquired ATi in 2006 but took five years to replace the ATi brand with its own.

"Aside from the logic board differences, there really isn't much else that makes this machine different from its 15" Unibody ancestors," iFixit concludes, giving the MacBook Pro Unibody 15" Early 2011 a repairability score of 7 out of 10, 10 being easiest. Most components are easy to access, though Apple doesn't consider the battery to be user-replaceable, and LCD repair is still "very tricky."

A caveat worth noting: "One thing that has us a little concerned about the new models is their quality control. A stripped screw near the subwoofer enclosure and an unlocked ZIF socket for the IR sensor should not be things found inside a completely unmolested computer with an $1,800 base price."